In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick
# In Santa Cruz, Diagnosed Home Sick

"In Santacruz, Diagnosed Home Sick" is a poem by the Indian English poet and novelist K Srilata. The poem won First Prize in the Eighth All India Poetry Competition conducted by The Poetry Society (India) in 1998. This was the first major literary award for Srilata, who subsequently won the Unison British Council Award and Charles Wallace Fellowship for Poetry.

## Excerpts from the poem

    At the gift shop by the wharf
    I bought an indigo octopus
    all arms...
    I, a newcomer to this
    out-of-the-way white-hippie town
    settle into the sea.
    My two-month hostility melts
    even as I see what divides me from home
    more clearly than I did from my airless plane.
    The sea knows ways of connecting too,
    fluidly hugging,
    in long-armed benevolence,
    the puzzle-edges of vast continents.

## Comments and criticism

The poem has received critical acclaim since its first publication in 1998 in the book Emerging Voices and has since been widely anthologised. The poem has been frequently quoted in scholarly analysis of contemporary Indian English poetry. The poem has inspired many literary works of similar name.

